Opinion: I’m Celebrating Super Mario Bros.’ 40th Anniversary By Finally Finishing It
By Hold on, furious crowd, lower the forks! I confess, until this week I had never rolled the credits on Super Mario Bros., yet that doesn’t mean the cartridge had gone untouched. Give me sixty seconds to set the torches aside and I’ll justify myself.
The first time I booted the 8-bit legend was 2004. I’d just torn the paper off a brand-new Game Boy Advance for my birthday, and in a paternal bid to steer me away from my beloved SpongeBob SquarePants Movie tie-in, Dad tucked the GBA re-release of SMB into the bundle.
Granted, the handheld’s Classic NES Series port wasn’t the optimal introduction—squashed visuals, a dim screen, tinny speakers—but six-year-old Jim hadn’t the foggiest, so I knuckled down and stomped goombas anyway.
That debut session is burnt into my brain. A pal owned the zoomed-in Deluxe edition on Game Boy Color, and we’d swap playground gossip about how many stages we’d cleared. Ducking beneath Bowser in 1-4 and watching him plunge into lava dominated lunch-table chat for days. Although my runs routinely ended with a “GAME OVER” well before the finale, I still conquered a respectable clutch of Worlds—evidently I possessed sharper reflexes at age six than I do now.
Then, inexplicably, I drifted away. Maybe the later fortresses broke my spirit. Perhaps the GBA’s 32-bit colour parade seduced me into shunning anything antiquated. Or some flashy licensed romp—who could resist the irresistible allure of Crazy Frog Racer over an obscure pixel relic? (That’s sarcasm—don’t @ me.)
For whatever motive, I shelved the cart and never returned. Nintendo has since thrown the title onto every machine imaginable, yet I remained fixated on whatever was fresh rather than what I’d skipped.
Consequently I skipped Virtual Console, couldn’t justify the cash for those gorgeous Game & Watch collectibles or the NES Classic Mini, and I certainly wasn’t trekking to Argos for remixed bundles on Wii U or 3DS. As for Switch Online… yeah, I’ve got zero defence.
Translation: twenty-two whole earth-orbits elapsed between that initial GBA boot-up and me clapping eyes on the mythic 8-4. Until, well, this week.
With the 40th birthday looming, I resolved to plug the most embarrassing gap in my gaming résumé. I launched NSO, began at 1-1, and—thanks largely to the heavenly Rewind button—blitzed to the ending inside a couple of shortened hours.
Where my childhood attempts flat-lined is anyone’s guess, yet anything past World 6 seemed virgin territory. Ergo I met monochrome 6-3 for the first time, gasped at the airborne Cheep-cheep bridge in 7-3 (basically 2-3 on steroids), and had to solve the labyrinthine castle hops in the last two keeps.
Shocker incoming: the thing’s fun. Some bits feel prehistoric by 2024 metrics (a forty-year relic? Outdated? Never!) but overwhelmingly it feels alarmingly sprightly.
Mario’s leap remains eternally crunchy. Lakitu is still a bullying sky-troll unless you swat him promptly. And wow, the finale’s difficulty cliff caught me off guard. I won’t claim it’s Dark Souls, yet I thanked every NSO deity for the rewind safety net.
After more restarts than my ego cares to confess, I zipped beneath Bowser’s legs once more and—at long last—discovered Princess Peach Toadstool in the correct fortress. Joy surged; somewhere, an imaginary NES Fan-Club badge clattered through my letterbox, reinstating my long-lost credentials.
Four decades on the shelf and it only took me the entire span to see the finale. Circle 2036 for my inevitable maiden voyage through Super Mario 64 (also tongue-in-cheek, calm down).
Have you revisited SMB for its ruby anniversary? Or are you fellow traveller seeing later Worlds with virgin eyes? Confess down below.